Some of the major PC manufacturers have either announced or are rumored to be working on 17-inch foldable laptops. But in a move that should come as a surprise to anyone unfamiliar with the company and its antics, Asus looks like it could be the first to be the first. I’m typing this on the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED, which is the first shelf-ready device of its kind to beat critics. It’s a 17.3-inch laptop with a screen that folds in half. And people: It works.

Good stuff

Foldable OLED screen The keyboard is comfortable and really useful Sturdy with a professional look

Bad things

Glitches and bloatware here and there The keyboard is not backlit Very, very expensive

Well, it mostly works. It doesn’t work well enough that I think you’ll have to spend a grand total of $3,499.99 on it when it ships in (Asus’ estimated) Q4. I’ve had enough problems with it that I can’t, in good conscience, recommend it as a purchase for this amount of money. But there are a lot of great things about it. It’s a great OLED with brilliant colors. The keyboard is full size and very comfortable. And – to repeat – the screen folds in half. The experience is such an improvement from the last foldable I tried (Lenovo’s smaller and shinier ThinkPad X1 Fold, 2020) that it makes me really excited for foldable devices to come. I really think they are getting there. Is this in your future?

It folds

When fully unfolded, it’s a 17.3-inch 4:3 tablet. When flipped horizontally and folded to about a 90-degree angle, it’s a 13-inch 3:2 notebook. (Well, 12.5, but close enough.) Close it (with the keyboard in – it fits perfectly) and you have a small book that’s easy to throw in a bag. You can probably see why a device like this would be handy to have around. There are other ways you can use it, of course. You could fold it horizontally and hold it like a book, though you’ll probably need to use some pretty specific apps to make it ideal. You could use it in what Asus calls “Extended Mode,” meaning you fold it into a regular laptop shape, setting the top half as the primary display and the bottom half as the secondary display. You could just pass it off as a really big Netflix viewing machine. But largely, there were two ways I found it useful to use the Zenbook 17 Fold. When I wanted a big screen, I unfolded the thing, knocked off the built-in kickstand, clipped it to my desk, and used the Bluetooth keyboard on the surface in front of it. When I wanted to use it on my couch or bed, I turned the screen vertically, folded it into a laptop shape, straightened the kickstand, and clipped the keyboard to the bottom half. It might sound like a whole thing and a half, but I promise it’s really quick. (And when the keyboard is enabled, Windows automatically squeezes onto the top screen.) There were two ways I found it useful to use the Zenbook 17 Fold The folding panel is rated for 30,000 open/close cycles. On paper, that looks good – it means if you open and close this thing 10 times a day, you’ll get eight years out of it. (Asus has confirmed that this number refers to full open/close cycles — re-cornering the screen doesn’t count in that total.) At this point, other parts of this laptop will have a problem before the screen does. However, I’m largely wary of this because we’ve seen reports of foldable phones cracking after a disappointingly short amount of time. Most people will open a phone more times in a day than they will open and close a laptop – this is just to reiterate that you never really know with these things. The webcam is 5MP with motion tracking and eye tracking options (but you can’t use both at the same time. And finally, to answer what I’m sure people are wondering: There is no visible crease in the middle of the Zenbook at all. I can’t see at all when using the device in tablet mode and looking directly at the screen. I see a very distinct one when viewed from the right or left side. This doesn’t directly affect my user experience, but it’s not reassuring at all. On the other hand, it folds. It’s a 17-inch panel that folds. This is very nice. A bit starfleet-y, isn’t it?

It’s beautiful

The last foldable I reviewed was 13.3 inches, and the Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad that came with it were so tiny that they were marginally unusable (as they had to fit inside such a tiny frame). On this model, some keys had four symbols crammed onto them, and the touchpad wasn’t large enough to scroll. But the 17-inch form factor allows for a keyboard similar to that of a 12.5-inch laptop, and this was quite comfortable to use. It justifiably felt like I was typing on a regular Zenbook keyboard (and I love typing on those). The keyboard is a bit thin. That’s not to say the keys don’t travel (they have an excellent click) or that the build is flimsy – it just means my strokes pressed the deck very lightly. I’m not someone who cares about that and it didn’t affect my experience in any way. But I know it annoys some people a lot, so if you’re in that crowd, this isn’t the keyboard for you. Overall, I prefer this to most detachable keyboards I’ve used in the past, including the Surface Pro 8 — it actually looks like a larger, more thoughtful version of the keyboard on Asus’ Chromebook Detachable CM3, which I also praised. And, of course, you can go ahead and use a different keyboard if that’s not your speed. Oh, and the keys aren’t backlit. I can understand that this is a trade-off that people wouldn’t mind, especially for a detachable. However, I feel that a $3,499 device should come with a backlit keyboard. The trackpad also has a decent click, but it lacked a bit in terms of palm rejection – not only did it think I was trying to navigate when I rested my palm on it, but it occasionally thought I was clicking. Show me this closed, and I’d think it was a very fancy designer Speaking of build quality: Overall, it’s impressive. The frame is entirely magnesium aluminum alloy with a nice professional color that Asus calls ‘Tech Black’. There’s no flex anywhere, and the faux leather cover means I wasn’t too worried about knocking it over. The unique thing here is that the surface of the frame – particularly the area around the logo – captures fingerprints quite easily. They are also easy to wipe off, but it never took long for more to appear. Show me that closed, and I’d think it was a really fancy designer or something. The lid features the new Asus logo, a small arrow, which I much prefer to the large “ASUS” emblazoned on Zenbook lids until very recently. The kickstand is pretty well camouflaged and looks like part of the fancy cover. Screen-on-body purists may notice that the bezels are a bit large, but that’s useful if you’re holding the device as a tablet. Here’s how it looks with the keyboard. I’m confused by the ports, which include two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C (support up to 40Gbps transfer speed) and a 3.5mm audio combo jack. One of the USB-C ports is on the side that includes the webcam, while the other is on its left side. This means that when in 17-inch tablet mode, one of the ports is at the top of the screen and one is on the left side. when in 13-inch laptop mode, one is on the top and the other is on the top right. I personally think that having cables sticking out of the top of the device is inconvenient and I’d prefer to have at least one port on the bottom right edge, (although I recognize that Asus’ layout can be limited). But the screen is a highlight of this device (besides the fact that it folds). It’s a 60Hz OLED touchscreen with a resolution of 2560 x 1920 up to 17 inches and a resolution of 1920 x 1280 up to 13 inches. Brightness topped out at 257 nits, which isn’t impressively bright, but OLEDs tend to run on the darker side. At one point I also saw a line of stuck pixels on the right side of the device, which disappeared with a reboot. I wish the refresh rate was higher – scrolling felt a bit stuttery and slow on this screen. Users will differ on how much they care about this, but I think 60 is low for a device of this price. “For a device of this price” is a running theme in this review. Despite these tricks, the Zenbook offers a pleasant viewing experience. The display covered 100 percent of the sRGB gamut, 93 percent of Adobe RGB and 100 percent of P3 in our tests – colors are overall rich and vibrant, with crisp detail. Asus also claims it emits “70 percent less harmful blue light than an LCD screen.” Overall, the company doesn’t seem to have sacrificed a ton of screen quality for the foldable, which is an encouraging sign for the future of the…